Did you ever want to be like someone else so much that
you began to imitate that person's behavior?
At some point in
life, most of us have had role models to whom we have looked for examples of
how to behave.
We tend to
pattern ourselves after people whom we respect, such as parents and
grandparents.Sometimes we choose people
who have achieved things that we also want to achieve.
Some have made
poor choices by imitating the bad examples of others.Young people today often choose terrible role
models (peers in school, pop-culture celebrities, athletes, musicians, movie
stars, etc.) whose examples lead them astray.
Regardless of whom we choose, our lives are always
profoundly affected by those whom we choose to imitate.
IMITATION
The Bible commends
the practice of imitation, provided that we choose to imitate the right
examples.
The ultimate role
model for all of us is the one in whose image we are created, God Himself, and
thus we are told to "be imitators of God, as beloved children" (Eph. 5:1).
The Son of God,
Jesus Christ our Lord, came to earth and lived as a man in part to give us a
pattern of behavior, love, and selfless sacrifice to imitate.
When Jesus had washed His disciples' feet, He said, "For
I gave you an example that you also should do as I did to you" (John
13:15).He expects His disciples to
imitate His example of service.
We are to be submissive to God's will in the likeness
of Christ, for 1Peter 2:21 says, "For you have been called for this purpose,
since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in
His steps."
In the likeness
of Jesus, we are to humble ourselves and place one another's needs above our
own, for Philippians 2:5 says of humility, "Have this attitude in yourselves
which was also in Christ Jesus."
We are also to repeat the Lord's pattern of love, for
1John 3:16 says, "We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and
we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren."
Not only are we
to imitate the pattern of Christ's way of life, but we should also imitate that
same pattern as it is emulated in others.
For example, the apostle Paul said, "Be imitators of
me, just as I also am of Christ" (1Cor. 11:1).Likewise, he also wrote, "Therefore I exhort you, be imitators of me"
(1Cor. 4:16).
Paul commended the Thessalonian Christians for
becoming "imitators of us and of the Lord" (1Thess. 1:6) and "imitators of the
churches of God in Christ Jesus" (1Thess. 2:14).
Paul told those
Christians that he and other teachers of the gospel had offered "ourselves as a
model for you, so that you would follow our example" (2Thess. 3:7, 9).
Similarly, we are told to be "imitators of those who
through faith and patience inherit the promises" (Heb. 6:12) and to imitate the
faith of those who have led us and taught us the word of God (Heb. 13:7).
The practice of
imitation is closely related to the idea of discipleship.To demonstrate this, let us compare an
imitator to a disciple.
An imitator is
one who observes the actions of another and then mimics them in his own life.In fact, the word "mimic" comes from the root
word of mimētēs, which is the Greek
word from which "imitator" is translated.
Similarly, a
disciple is a learner or pupil, who learns not only from the words of his
teacher but also from the teacher's actions.
The disciple's learning is not merely an intellectual
exercise, but rather it is a means of transforming his life into conformity
with his teacher (for example, see John 13:13-15).
By definition, a disciple imitates his teacher as
closely as he possibly can, and thus a disciple is virtually the same as an
imitator.
HYPOCRISY
Let us understand
that there is a vast difference between imitating someone else and pretending to
be something that one is not.
True imitation is
a sincere attempt to emulate the actions, words, and attitudes of another
person, but pretending to be what one is not is play-acting or, in another
word, hypocrisy.Hypocrisy is merely a
superficial performance that creates a false appearance.
A hypocrite only
pretends to be like someone else, but he never actually becomes like the other
person.Contrary to that, an imitator
genuinely changes who he is so that he takes on the same traits that he
observed in someone else.
As we have
already seen, the Bible commends the imitation of godly persons, but it
strongly condemns the practice of hypocrisy.
In fact, no one
received harsher words of condemnation from Jesus than the hypocritical
Pharisees
In Matthew 23, Jesus used the word "hypocrites" eight
times to describe the Pharisees (vv. 13-15, 23-29).Each time He specifically contrasted the way the
Pharisees falsely portrayed themselves as righteous to the way they actually
behaved, which was evil.
In Luke 11:37-52, the Lord similarly exposed the
hypocrisy of the Pharisees and the lawyers.
Time and time
again, Jesus said to these men, "Woe to you!"They were condemned because of their hypocrisy.
The Lord was so
harsh in these words because a hypocrite's entire life becomes nothing more
than an act, and nothing about him is as it appears to be.
The Lord called hypocrisy the "leaven of the
Pharisees" (Luke 12:1), which suggests how hypocrisy affected everything the
Pharisees did ("a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough" -- 1Cor.
5:6).Such leaven even makes what
appears to be good in the hypocrite into something evil.
For example, many of the things that the Pharisees did
were technically correct, but their motivation was evil.In truth, they desired the appearance of
righteousness for the praise of men rather than the glorification of God and
the benefit of their fellow man.
In this way, even
when positive benefits result for others because of a hypocrite's actions, the
hypocrite is not gratified unless he is recognized and benefited himself.This is the hypocrite's self-serving and evil
way, and it makes him the ultimate liar and deceiver, for his life is built
entirely on false pretenses.
A hypocrite is nothing but an actor and a pretender
who is only a hollow shell with no real substance.
CONCLUSION
So then, consider your own life and answer this
question: in regards to your relationship to Jesus Christ, are you an imitator
or an actor?
Are you genuinely
imitating Christ's traits of moral excellence, knowledge, self-control,
perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness, and love (2Pet. 1:5-7), or are you
merely putting on a good appearance to garner the approval of others?
If you are a good
actor, then you may be able to delude others, but "do not be deceived, God is
not mocked" (Gal. 6:7).Ultimately, we
all will be judged by the Lord, and no actor or pretender will be able to
deceive Him.
Therefore, let us be true imitators of Jesus Christ
and all of those who likewise imitate His perfect example.